


Accepted

by zeldadestry



Category: Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:54:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another night, another party, for I still attend them more often than I should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accepted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PteranodonSays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PteranodonSays/gifts).



Another night, another party, for I still attend them more often than I should.

They invite me, I respond. Is there any real shame in that?

Yes, I realize how often you’ve advised me to know better. I should ask myself how I want to spend my evenings, instead of waiting on the universe to provide me with an appointment.

Will you join me?

No? Then at least tell me I look my best, as well-dressed as I was before I could be called ancient, rotten, a relic.

Thank you. I appreciate, as always, your willingness to favor poetry when the truth, unvarnished, would be cruel. 

Give me your hand, my friend. May we both endure until we meet again.

 

Another night, another party upon the same sands, the same shore. I listen as much to the waves behind me as I do the swells of people around me. Conversation remains a game, but I no longer have much wish to play, to score, to prove myself.

I drink, however, as much as ever before.

 

I find it essential to always know which ocean I stand before. This is the Pacific, and the only person standing between me and the water is a young woman, dark-haired, her shoulders bare.

“It’s too cool,” I tell her, slipping off my sport coat. “May I offer you-”

“J. Alfred,” she interrupts. “I’ve been waiting here, for you.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t realize we’d met?”

She smiles, never shivers, her skin does not prickle with gooseflesh, even though the wind is bitter. “No, you don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you for a very long time.” She must see the question in my eyes. “I’m much older than I look. You may think of me as one of your imagined sea-girls, if you like, and I have journeyed here, far from the heart of the ocean to stand in front of you. I know you. I know that the world’s possibilities have trapped you. Your many questions engulfed you, yes, you never even attempted an answer before supplying yourself with the next riddle, and now, now you recognize it is too late. You will never be more than what you are today. You will never become anyone you dreamed of being.”

“I can offer no protest.”

“No? But I have something for you, my friend. I propose a trade, a fair one. Pledge me your soul and I will return you to your childhood. I will grant you another chance.”

I have never answered immediately and here, as always, I take my time, I consider both possibilities, the yes and the no.

“I should’ve known better,” she hisses, when she judges me to have waited long enough. “You’re too much of a coward to even consider my offer, aren’t you?”

“If you know me as well as you say you do, then you know how many times I asked myself, “Do I want it to be over?” You know how many times I imagined throwing myself into your ocean and disappearing.”

“You will disappear, as all mortals do, and soon.”

“I know.”

“So say yes. Let me give you a new life.”

“But why? This life, however small, petty, misspent, and even miserable, has at least always been my own. I see myself reflected in every action I take, no matter how badly they seem to end. The only thing that could render my life meaningless would be to deny it.” 

“And you believe that matters?”

“I do,” I say. “I dare.”


End file.
